Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The bulk of you are lazy goofs who deserve whatever abuse government gives you during the next four years

I
cast my ballot a couple of weeks ago – in the morning hours of Good Friday, to
be exact.

I
used one of the early voting centers so that I could get it out of the way and
have my Tuesday free on the off-chance that I wind up spending the day as a reporter-type
person trying to figure out how other people are voting.

YET
THE HONEST truth is that the people I will be focusing on are NOT the bulk of
our society.

For
most of us are going to sit on our duffs and do nothing. If anything, the bulk
of us will get irritated at the presence of elections, and act as though they
ought not to take place at all.

Now
I have made this argument before – and I suspect I will make it repeatedly for
as long as I live. Those people who don’t vote are allowing government to run
roughshod over them.

A
good part of the reason I insist on casting a ballot (even in an election cycle
like this one where the posts up for grabs were of no interest to anyone who
didn’t live in my immediate community) is that I believe I am ensuring my right
to complain for the next four years.

PEOPLE
WHO CAN’T be bothered to cast a ballot really have no right to gripe!

So
for the at least 80 percent of people who don’t bother to vote on Tuesday (the
estimates are that, at best, 20 percent of the electorate will cast ballots), I
don’t really want to hear your complaints.

You
have your chance on Tuesday to have a say over how those local officials will
spend your local tax dollars, and how all those local school districts and park
boards and sanitary districts and other entities will operate – and you chose
to remain silent!

Now
having said that, I do realize that for many people, there isn’t much of a
choice come this particular Election Day.

THE
REALITY IS that in too many of those suburban communities, there is a local
political establishment that tries to operate in as much anonymity as possible –
and there isn’t any opposition.

In
some cases, no one else could be bothered to challenge the incumbents. Not
because of any real satisfaction, but because of apathy.

While
in other places, local officials know how to game the electoral process to
eliminate anyone who had the “gall” (in the incumbents’ opinion) to challenge
them.

Is this what it takes to get people to vote?

And
within Chicago proper, this is the election cycle where nothing is at stake –
with the exception of those who live in the Far South Side and will be picking
a replacement for Jesse Jackson, Jr., to represent them in Congress.

EVEN
THERE, THE real election cycle came back in the special primary election held
in February. Tuesday is likely the night that one-time state Rep. and Cook County
CAO Robin Kelly gets rubber-stamped to go to Washington.

We
can speculate all we want about the possibility of a long-shot victory for
Republican Paul McKinley or Green Party-type LeAlan Ford – yet the key to a
long-shot upset electoral victory is candidate interest.

Yet
even so, I still felt compelled to cast my ballot. Like I said, I like to be
able to complain about the status quo. Which in this case constitutes a rant
about the bulk of people who on Tuesday seemed to only have interest in
ignoring the fact that it is Election Day.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.